Gregory C Chow

http://www.princeton.edu/~gchow/

Princeton University

July 7, 2007

Dr. Hen-fu Zou’s contribution to economics education in China has been extremely outstanding and remarkable. I first met Dr. Zou in the World Bank in about 1995-6 when I was a consultant to World Bank on the preparation of one of its reports on China. Dr. Zou gave me a calling card as Director of Institute of Economics at Wuhan University. Since then I have been following his work to promote economics education in China. His contributions include the following.

1. In Wuhan University he established the teaching of modern economics using textbooks similar to those used at Harvard and invited outstanding scholars to lecture on subjects covered by these text books. I have just met a Dr. Wei Zou (same last name, but not related) who is directing such activities while Dr. Hengfu Zou is not in China and who has very favorable comments about Heng-fu’s work as someone working in Wuhan and observing the progress in house.

2. At the Guanghua School at Peking University Dr. Zou made similar contributions by introducing reading material in modern economics and inviting outstanding lectures to teach on a short term basis.

3. At Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, Heng-fu also invited outstanding lectures to teach and gave lectures himself for several times.

4. He found a new journal Annals of Economics and Finance which is a very good journal that provides an outlet for Chinese economists with specialization on topics related to the Chinese economy, in addition to publishing good economics articles in general.

Note that all the work mentioned above requires continuous attention year after year. It is difficult to find someone not residing in China who has helped advance economics education in China in the last decade as much as Dr. Zou.

Gregory C Chow

http://www.princeton.edu/~gchow/